The present invention relates to a method for conditioning and displaying timetable information in a transport network that has a plurality of stops for scheduled means of transport.
Such methods are usually based on the provision of timetable information at various locations along the routes of travel of the public means of transport. This can be effected by means of platform displays, bus stop displays or else by means of loudspeaker announcements, for example.
By way of example, DE 603 20 237 discloses a method for determining an arrival time of a vehicle at one or more positions along the route of travel for the vehicle, in which the vehicle periodically transmits signals when the vehicle has reached a particular position. An arrival time at one or more of the positions along the route of travel is then determined. Finally, these arrival times are transmitted to reception units at various points along the vehicle route, such as in businesses, households or schools. This is intended to allow more accurate prediction of the arrival time of the vehicle, e.g. a school bus.
However, the timetable information in this case is output only at fixed, predefined locations along the routes of travel of the public means of transport. Particularly for passengers who are staying in a strange city, for example, and who wish to use public means of transport to get to a particular destination, the problem arises that it is first of all necessary to identify where the next stop for a public means of transport that is going to the desired destination is located. There may even be multiple alternative stops available for going to the desired destination. In this case, the choice of the appropriate stop is dependent on the future departure times of the relevant public means of transport at these stops, for example.
It would therefore be desirable if the timetable information could be transmitted directly to the location of the passenger. This would mean that it is not necessary to go to the various stops in order to ascertain the best service to the destination. At any rate, the passenger would be able to do this only within a very small radius.
The very widespread nature of mobile data appliances or mobile telephones means that the timetable information can be transmitted to the passenger directly using these appliances, for example.
Already known methods for retrieving timetable information on mobile appliances of this kind require specific knowledge for operating the relevant software programs. By way of example, the passenger often needs to find his way around confusing menus for the various timetable information. Navigation through the complicated menu structures using scrollbars and dropdown list boxes is very laborious, particularly on the mobile appliances with their small displays. Furthermore, the web pages of the providers of the local public transport differ from city to city, usually considerably. Hence, a very large amount of time is taken before the departure times of the public means of transport at suitable surrounding stops can be ascertained.
DE 10 2008 017 392 discloses a method for querying timetable information in which the mobile telephone is first of all used to input character strings that are transmitted to a central memory unit. The character or numerical sequences are analyzed and conditioned using what are known as character string filters. The analysis is used to derive specific timetable queries from the character or numerical sequences. By way of example, the numerical sequence “030-040” results in a query for the timetable information from Berlin to Hamburg. The result obtained from the query is then transmitted to the mobile telephone.
In this case too, however, specific knowledge is required for correctly generating the corresponding character strings, which in turn makes querying the timetable information difficult. Furthermore, this method also provides no assistance for identifying the location of a suitable stop nearby that provides a connection to the desired destination.